CPC-02. Couch Potato Crisis, page 19
part #2 of Couch Potato Chronicles Series
“Oh, you’re looking at that rare item that’s been sitting in Ratleth’s stall for the last three months? I’m sure Ratleth would love to sell it to you, if only to get rid of it, but it’s against guild policy.”
“No way. I want that hairpin. Where do I go to register as a pirate?”
“Ya want to be a pirate? Just to buy a hairpin?” The man raised his eyebrows, then frowned. “Suit yourself. You’ll want to ask Lavelle, the Pirate King. This time of day, you’ll likely find him at the bar. If he’s not there, check the brothels.”
“Captain Lavelle is the pirate king?” asked Tasha.
“Yeah, what of it?”
“It’s just, I had it on good authority K’her Noálin was the pirate king.”
He laughed. “That was months ago, love. Ever since he lost the ability to control the wind, he’s been drinking himself stupid. I would’na steer ya wrong. Captain Lavelle is the new pirate king.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay, got it.”
She left the bazaar and entered the large tavern across the street. Though it wasn’t yet even noon, pirates of all shapes and sizes packed the crowded bar. She scanned them one at a time until she found Lavelle. Even without a nametag floating over his head, Tasha could have guessed the figure before her was the pirate king. For one thing, the man was large. Not “Oh dear, I seem to have eaten a few hundred too many sweet rolls” large, but the kind of largeness you get from being born half-giant. The full giants Tasha had seen walking around the capital were larger than most buildings, but this man possessed only about twice the size and bulk of an ordinary human.
Another indicator he was the king was that he sat on a prominent jewel-encrusted chair surrounded by a harem of half-naked women who draped themselves all over him. Lavelle held an enormous flagon of grog in one hand, and an elven maiden sat on his lap. A blond-haired human woman was giving him a foot massage when he noticed Tasha looking at him.
Tasha approached the half-giant. “Are you Captain Lavelle?”
The large man stood and approached her. “Arr, I do indeed be the one and only Captain Lavelle. And who might you be?”
The dark elven lady giving him a massage said, “I know what ye be here for.”
Tasha hesitated. “That’s good. I just...”
She continued, “Yes, you’ll do nicely. I assume you’re here to join master Lavelle’s harem. You’ll have to convince his first wife, but you’ll fit in with the others nicely. And with you in the mix we’ll be an even dozen.”
“His...harem?”
The dark elf nodded. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“No! God no! I don’t want to be part of anyone’s harem.”
The elven woman who had been in Lavelle’s lap leaned in closer. “Sweety-pumpkin, make the mean human lady go away. I don’t think she’d make a good sister-wife.”
Lavelle said, “We don’t even know if that’s why she’s here. Let’s just hear her out.”
The elf pouted, but backed off.
Tasha needed to change the flow of this conversation. “Look, I’m here because I want to be a pirate!”
Lavelle crouched down and inspected Tasha. He took a long drink of grog as he considered her request.
“Arrr. I shall allow ye ta join the pirate’s guild. Anyone is free to join, after all, but first ye must pass three trials.” He raised three fingers, as if to demonstrate the number of trials that she’d have to pass in the off chance she might be mathematically challenged.
She groaned. She wasn’t that keen on being a pirate, but it seemed the only way to get the hairpin. Whatever trials the half-giant man came up with, she’d pass, and then she’d be on her way. Why did everything in her life have to be so complicated? “What are these trials?”
“Bring out the wheel of challenges!” Lavelle commanded in a booming voice.
Four bar patrons dragged out an ungainly wooden contraption and leaned it against the wall. It had a wheel on a spinner with nails around its circumference and a needle at the top. The wheel was divided into slices, each with a different test.
The pirate king turned to one of his many significant others. “Hannah, would ye do the honors?”
The red-headed human woman spun the wheel. The needle ticked every time it hit a new segment, turning round and round until finally stopping on a slice that read “The Trial of Boozery” right between “The Trial of Sea Shantery”, and “The Trial of Choreographed Line Dancing”.
“Arrr, this be the trial of Boozery. Tell me, Tasha, can ye hold yer grog?”
“Well there was that time I got so drunk on death whisky that I blacked out and accidentally married a toad, so not really.”
“Splendid!” said Lavelle. “Let the drinking begin. You’ll be facing off against Monroe. First to collapse, loses.”
She was led to a small wooden table with two barstools. Her opponent had the body of a fish with the arms and legs of a human man.
“You want me to outdrink a fish?”
“I’m not a fish. I’m a merman!” said the fish.
“I thought merfolk had the head and upper body of a human and a fish-like tail. I even saw some back at the capital.”
“Ah, you must be thinking about mermaids. Women in our species are like that, but we mermen have the bodies of fish but arms and legs of humans. That way we can walk about on land.”
“Enough with the marine biology lesson—get to the drinking!” demanded Lavelle.
Tasha considered the translucent green bottle of dwarven death whisky on the table between them. She removed the stopper and poured a small portion of it into an empty shot glass placed in front of her. The smell caused her to shudder; her last experience with this particular intoxicant hadn’t been pleasant.
Bracing herself for the inevitable aftereffects, she downed the drink in one swallow. It had a sweet, somewhat woodsy flavor, followed by the inevitable corrosive sensation as the harsh liquid went down. The pirates around her cheered, whooped, hollered, swung from the chandeliers, and generally made a ruckus as pirates are wont to do.
Her merman opponent retrieved the bottle, poured himself a drink, and downed it effortlessly. The bottle passed back and forth between them again and again..
After her third drink, Tasha felt loose. She opened up about herself, answered questions, and before she knew it, she was regaling the onlookers with the tale of one of her adventures.
“What happened next?” asked the merman after Tasha downed her sixth shot.
She swayed from side to side, trying to steady herself. When she spoke, her words blended together. “So, anyways, the train was full of ninjas and we killed most of them and rescued the princess, but the fairy had already rigged the train to crash, see, and they’d taken out the conductor. If someone didn’t stop it, the train was gonna crash into Belcross City.”
The merman took another drink and slammed it upside-down onto the table. There were now seven empty shot glasses before him and six in front of Tasha.
She took the bottle and poured herself another shot, filling it too high and spilling the excess onto the table where it formed a small puddle. She downed it, shuddering at the alcohol’s burn.
“And then I went to the engine car, but couldn’t make heads or tails of it. I’ve never driven a train before. There were too many knobs and levers, and they were all written in dwarvish. Before I could stop her, my friend Pan pulled out a machine gun and shot up the control panel.”
“That doesn’t sound especially helpful,” said the merman who calmly poured and drank his eighth shot. The merman looked uncomfortable, but it didn’t seem to be a reaction to the alcohol.
She fumbled for the bottle of death whisky, but knocked it over. Captain Lavelle picked up the bottle and poured her next drink. “So, how did you stop the train?”
Tasha downed the shot, and the unwelcome urge to vomit came over her. She resisted and the moment passed. She hiccuped.
“Well, I grabbed my other friend Ari in a princess-carry and sprinted ahead of the train. I told him, Ari, I said, suplex that train!”
“You told him to suplex a train? But that’s...impossible.” The merman calmly poured himself another drink and swallowed it without displaying any signs of inebriation.
Lavelle poured Tasha another drink. She brought it to her lips, hesitated, and downed it. Her eyes blurred. It was becoming more and more difficult to focus. An alcohol poisoning debuff appeared in her HUD, but she ignored it. “Ari said it was impossible too, but I gave him a pep talk, which gave him the strength he needed to suplex the crap out of that train engine!”
“Hey boss, why don’t you give us pep talks like that?” complained one of the pirates.
The merman took another drink and handed the bottle back to Tasha. While the merman didn’t seem any worse for wear, his eyes kept darting to the nearby port-a-potty.
Lavelle took the bottle and poured Tasha’s drink.
She looked the captain right in the eyes. “Do you know the strangest part? When he did it, when Ari suplexed that train and went beyond his limit, for just a moment he looked different. Like he was starting to change into something else, but stopped before it finished.” She downed the drink.
“What do you think he was transforming into?” asked Lavelle.
“Dunno. Anyway, the train skidded along the ground and stopped just by Belcross’s entrance where it still sits to this day—as far as I know. And that’s the story of the first time I drank Dwarven Death Whisky.”
She awkwardly passed the bottle to the merman. He poured himself another shot, was about to down it, but instead got up and ran to the portapotty, yelling, “I knew I shouldn’t have drunk that 64oz bottle of crab juice right before my drinking contest. Curse my hubris!”
Tasha, who had nearly collapsed from her chair, said “So, does this mean I win?”
Captain Lavelle helped her to her feet and handed her a healing potion. “Yeah, you win. Drink this. It’ll help you sober up before the next trial.”
She popped the stopper from the curative potion and downed it. Her mental haziness was gone in an instant.
“You passed that trial.” Lavelle frowned. “Let’s hope the next one is more of a challenge.”
The redhead spun the wheel a second time. It made several full turns before landing on “The Trial of Arm Wrestling”.
“For the second test of your readiness to be a pirate, you must arm-wrestle Klunk.” Lavelle pointed to an ogre in the corner.
The ogre’s arms were as thick as 2-foot wide tree trunks, and every bit as solid. He wore a table-cloth sized bandana to cover his bald head. Klunk slammed his elbow on the table, leaving a small indentation. “Klunk want arm wrestle with twig lady!”
Tasha turned back to Lavelle, “Are you serious? I can’t arm wrestle him. He’s got to be four times my size!”
“I’d say seven times her size,” commented one of the pirates.
“Go on, girl. Give it a try, what have you got to lose but your dignity?”
She took the seat across from Klunk and put her elbow on the table. Her forearm was too short to reach his hand, so she settled for wrapping her hand around his trunk-like arm. As soon as Lavelle called out, “Begin,” Klunk slammed her arm through the table, breaking the furniture into two pieces. The bar burst out into laughter at her expense.
“Klunk, you need to stop breaking our tables!” said a barmaid.
“Put on Klunk’s tab.”
Tasha fumed at Lavelle. “That wasn’t a fair match!”
The pirate king laughed. “This ain’t the fighter’s guild, sweetheart. We don’t care about fairness. I’ll let you in on a tidbit of knowledge. No one who has taken that test has beaten Klunk fairly.”
Of course. He wouldn’t have given her this challenge if there wasn’t a way for her to complete it. While she wasn’t a thief or a trickster, she did have an ability that might give her an edge. Her arm was still sore from earlier, but she didn’t want to walk away in defeat.
“Can I try that one more time?”
Lavelle smiled. “Try as many times as you need.”
Once the barmaid had replaced Klunk’s table, he again slammed his elbow onto the table, ready for the rematch.
This time, Tasha activated her Stat Shuffle ability, reallocating all of her 174 stat points into strength, bringing her final strength score to 176. Her body transformed itself, her muscles reaching Super Saiyan Third levels of bulk. It wasn’t exactly flattering on her, but looking good wouldn’t help her beat Klunk.
“Klunk say no fair! Twig lady can’t grow muscles that fast. It’s cheating!”
Lavelle asked, “How did you do that? Some sort of ability? Never mind. I’ll allow it.”
Tasha grabbed his arm and waited for the signal. This time, the match was much closer. They must have been evenly matched in strength, though Klunk had the advantage of leverage, since his arms were significantly longer. The match ground on for over a minute, with neither side gaining headway. Klunk grunted and groaned as he pushed against her arm, unable to achieve a win. Sweat ran down the ogre’s brow.
Tasha grew anxious.. She only had a five-minute window to use her signature Stat Shuffle ability, and the timer in her HUD showed just barely over two minutes remaining.
She racked her brain, trying to come up with another skill to use to gain the advantage. There must be a way. It was difficult for her to think critically while focusing on the match, especially given that the stat shuffle had given her a significantly reduced intelligence score.
If things stayed the way they were, she was sure to lose. If only she had more leverage. Maybe that was the key, but she wouldn’t be able to reach his wrist; it was too high. She scooted her seat to the side, never letting go of his arm as she gradually let him push her arm further toward the table, but not so much that it touched.
It was a struggle to keep him from winning, but it was also a necessary gamble. She slipped her elbow to the side, sliding her grasp on Klunk’s arm closer to his wrist. This changed the angle of the competition, but also gave her significantly more leverage than before.
Less than one minute remained on her Stat Shuffle skill, so she pushed against his hand, forcing it upward. Klunk’s leverage advantage was now gone. The flow of the competition had reversed and she gradually forced his arm downward, onto the table.
“No fair! How did twig lady beat Klunk?”
Tasha’s Stat Shuffle skill elapsed, and her muscles returned to their earlier, much more sensible levels. “Just got lucky, I guess.” She winked.
Lavelle said, “I’ve never seen anyone defeat Klunk in a fair match. Usually, people find a way to cheat or distract him. It was supposed to be a test of your ability to pull one over on your opponent. Klunk isn’t exactly difficult to confound by concepts of middling complexity. After all, he graduated with honors from the Southern Bogwiggle Institute for Applied Stupidity.”
Klunk blushed. “Thank you, captain.”
“But, I still won, right?”
“Aye, that you did. Now for the final test. Yvonne, if you’ll do the honors?”
The other redhead, apparently named Yvonne, spun the wheel a final time. It came to a stop between “The Trial of Swashbuckery” and “The Trial of Sweet Roll Consumption.” The chosen selection read, “The Trial of Kart Racing”.
“Kart Racing? What does that have to do with being a pirate?”
“Nothing at all,” said Lavelle. “We just think it’s fun.” He turned to a pirate standing by the door. “Find some hapless tourists and islanders to join us. We’ll run the 150cc course.”
“You got it boss!”The buccaneer ran off to set up the race.
Fifteen minutes later, everyone—both racers and spectators—had gathered outside.
Tasha approached the other racers, a motley crew consisting of Ari, Slimon, Pan, Captain Malarkey, and an assortment of pirates. Tasha didn’t recognize most. “What are you guys doing here?”
Ari said, “You didn’t show up for our meeting. We feared the worst. When we discovered nobody had been murdered, we went back to our meeting spot. Then a pirate came by looking for people to join a kart race. ”
“You didn’t murder any guards, did you?” Hermes fiddled around in his right nostril and came away with golden treasure. He smiled before flicking it away.
Tasha averted her eyes, but it was too late. “What? No! Murdering guards was just a phase. I’m past all that now.”
“Good to hear.”
Lavelle led them to the starting line, where a sequence of thematically appropriate steam-powered karts awaited them.
In total, sixteen karts were lined up before the starting line. The shop owner, Paul, sat in one of the karts—this one had a sidecar with a small girl in it—Tasha assumed that was his daughter.
Slimon’s kart looked like a larger slime, Captain Makarley’s resembled a keg, magical symbols adorned Pan’s kart, and Ari’s was a steam-powered motorbike, complete with a specially designed helmet to accommodate his spiky hair. Tasha’s kart resembled an off-brand steam-powered BarcaLounger with wheels.
Piloting a recliner wasn’t exactly flattering, but it was thematically appropriate for a couch potato.
An old lady pirate stood at the starting line holding two flags. “This is a five-lap race around the island. Follow the flags, watch out for the carnivorous daffodils and homicidal mushrooms, and don’t use deadly weapons that aren’t part of the course. Items are enabled and prizes go to the first three to complete it. The rest of you lot can bugger off. Ready? Set? Aaaaannd….Wait for it…go!”
The controls were simple enough, consisting of foot pedals for acceleration and braking, and a hand brake on the steering wheel for tight turns. She put the BarcaLounger in gear and it blasted forward. Nearly half the racers had a lead on her, but she could catch up.
A racing interface replaced her HUD, and it showed her in 10th place. A minimap showed the shape of the track as well as the positions of other racers.
She collided with a glowing multi-colored box with a question mark on all sides. The box transformed into a small red mushroom with yellow dots and flew into her outstretched hand. Due to her extensive karting video game experience, she expected this kind of mushroom to result in a burst of speed.
